Approving the construction of a gravel mining road in a remote stretch of northwest Alaska may not sound like much, but it’s a giant step toward challenging an assertive China’s plan to become the 21st century’s dominant global power.
Once completed, the proposed 211-mile-long Ambler Road Project will provide access to rich deposits of copper, cobalt, zinc, lead, gold, silver, gallium, germanium, and other valuable ores with both commercial and military applications, according to the Trump White House. The road will enable essential surface transportation to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District, one of the largest undeveloped copper-zinc mining belts in the world. Over 1,700 active claims have already been filed in the district, a clear indication of the area’s potential.
Until recently, it looked as if these strategic minerals were going to continue to rest undisturbed underground, in what can only be seen as part of a deliberate effort by the Biden administration to cede global leadership in minerals and energy to China — America’s chief geopolitical rival.
The Ambler Road Project was approved during President Donald Trump’s first term. That decision was later reversed by the Biden White House, which said the project threatened caribou and other wildlife. Seeing domestically sourced critical minerals as crucial to its vision of reindustrializing the United States, the Trump administration, on Oct. 6, instructed federal agencies to approve permits for the mining road.
This decision came not a second too soon. Four days later, China announced sweeping new export controls on rare earths, a move designed to stifle global — and especially American — access to critical raw materials for magnets found in computer chips, medical devices, radar systems, jet engines, laptops, defense technologies and other products. China’s export restrictions are a timely reminder that Beijing is prepared to use its near monopoly on the global supply chain for rare earths (both mining and processing) as leverage against the U.S. in trade disputes with Washington.
By requiring foreign companies to file dual-use export license applications for rare earths with China’s Ministry of Commerce, Beijing knows it can clog up supply chains to data centers, giving China a leg up in the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
“The new directive is a clear attempt to undermine the industrial base development efforts of the United States and its allies,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, in a comment to The Washington Post. “What’s remarkable about the move is its focus on the military applications of rare earths, rather than the broader economy.”
What Chinese President Xi Jinping is doing on rare earths — taking full advantage of America’s dependency — he can do with other essential raw materials. This is why the greenlighting of permits for the Ambler Road Project is crucial in today’s no-holds-barred geopolitical rivalry. On Oct. 9, the Senate approved three resolutions reversing Biden-era Resource Management Plans (RMPs) that had put millions of acres of federal lands in Alaska, Montana and North Dakota off-limits to energy and mining development.
Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows a simple majority of both houses to undo regulations adopted in the final months of the previous administration, GOP-led lawmakers unlocked the resources the Biden administration thought it had locked up. This includes 2.75 million acres of land and 11.7 million acres of mineral estate in Montana, where the Biden administration had restricted access to the Powder River Basin, home to 30% of the nation’s coal reserves. The Senate also rolled back a Biden RMP that prohibited leasing on 99% of North Dakota’s coal deposits and 44% of the state’s oil and natural gas acreage.
Finally, the Senate overturned the Biden-era Central Yukon RMP, which locked up more than 13.3 million acres of land in Alaska from mineral and energy development. The vote will also ease the way for the construction of the Ambler Road Project and the Alaska Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Pipeline. The House passed all three CRA resolutions in September, and Trump is expected to sign the resolutions in short order.
The fight over the Ambler Road Project is not yet over, with environmental groups threatening to sue the administration for having the temerity to stick up for American interests. In the meantime, until the U.S. can close the gap with China on the mining and refining of rare earths — and that will take several years — it can continue to augment its global leadership in the production of oil and natural gas by taking advantage of its own vast mineral resources. How valuable are these resources? A soon-to-be-released report by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimates there are $12 trillion in recoverable mineral resources in the United States.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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